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Saturday, August 13, 2011

Facebook espionage

This was an interesting NY Times article about how the U.S. government is looking to expand it's intelligence and counterterrorism groups into social networking:

As social media play increasingly large roles in fomenting unrest in countries like Egypt and Iran, the military wants systems to be able to detect and track the spread of ideas both quickly and on a broad scale. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting innovative proposals to help build what would be, at its most basic level, an Internet meme tracker.

It would be useful to know, for instance, whether signs of widespread rebellion were authentic or whether they were being created by a fringe group with little real support. Among the tools the successful seeker of government funding might choose to employ: linguistic cues, patterns of information flow, topic trend analysis, sentiment detection and opinion mining.

It's an ambitious goal, but I wonder if this type of thing is more art than science. If someone could accurately predict future trends with a $42 million piece of software (the amount the U.S. government is putting up to sponsor research in this area), then I'm sure that someone would be putting the software to a more lucrative, business or stock related use. The only people who seem likely to volunteer to do such an ill-fated project are the ones who either (1) know that they'll never come up with the software anyway, but don't mind getting paid to spin their wheels or (2) double agents who know that they'll come up with the software and will sell the U.S. government out. But that's the problem with big government is that the bigger it gets, the harder it is to tell what's going on -- right libertarians?

A better use of funds might be to hire young sociopaths to monitor social networking sites and push people into doing one thing or the other. Of course, they could always go "bad" and engage in behavior counter to official policy. Easy solution! Just hire sociopaths to monitor those ones, and so on.

Id be just as content to watch it all implode and pick the bones at leisure.(pictures lower functioning socio's fighting each other for status in black suits and wrap round sunglasses). ahhh the mayhem......

“It is now known that there is a brain defect present in all adult sociopaths that is probably congenital. Neuroscience is seeking ways to correct it before the growing child learns to manipulate others instead of relating. Sociopaths go their whole lives without ever feeling that warmth, pretending to be outgoing and charismatic, but really being introverted and intractable. They watch others and imitate the feelings that happen only in connection with people, but cannot feel them. Hidden envy of healthy people is often at the root of their attacks; they seek to ruin what they cannot have. Martha Stout, author of “The Sociopath Next Door,” says that it is akin to a person parched with thirst and unable to satisfy it by drinking anything. Some say that sociopaths feel either nothing, hateful spite, or a strange, incomprehensible “static” that is their brain’s attempt to process what it cannot. This latter is part of the restlessness that drives them to seek excitement — and, perhaps, victims.”

I don't even know what you idiots are doing here. You're like parasites that need to talk to eachother and couldn't find a better place than here. Nullities. That's what you are. Here to stink up the place and infect it with emotions and whatnot.

Erin, to get over your barriers you have don't think about stuff. You have to speak all the time. You have to let it all out in whatever shape or form it comes to you. Don't even think about it, just let it out.

I'm starting to think tik and erin are part of some cult that want to take over SW, so socios will be run off. Look around you guys. Where is everyone going? Lately it's mostly erin, tik, and mania jerking each other off on here.

Hey, look at me, I'm Erin and I have a dead son that haunts me. What the fuck he's dead, why is he with me? Why do I bring him up? I don't even know. I have one synapse that works and that is DEAD SON DEAD SON. Motherfucker am I tired of myself.

Kick me in the stomach, punch me in the teeth, do something to me. I can't stand myself anymore. I wish I just ignited spontaneously and burned down to a dusty astrology book. Fuck me, I am the world's biggest failure as a part of homo-sapiens species.

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Of course, my default is still to intuitively analyze every outcome and situation and achieve the best result, but it's more interesting to let people remain a variable and go in their own direction, rather than nudging them in the direction I prefer. Interacting with people WITHOUT trying to control them is a new paradigm for me.